Another Kingdom by Andrew Klavan

Author:Andrew Klavan [Klavan, Andrew]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Turner Publishing Company
Published: 2019-03-05T06:00:00+00:00

“AND NOW, AUSTIN Lively,” the king continued, his tone still joyful. “To give heart and hope to my people, prove to them you are the one Queen Elinda sent to us by claiming the gift she left for him, as only he can do.”

Uh oh, I thought.

But the truth is, I didn’t know whether to be terrified or relieved. I mean, obviously, if they were looking for a fighting man of brave heart and right belief, they had missed their target by about a mile. So whatever test I was supposed to pass now was going to result in some sort of low comic moment of total failure. And on the one hand, that would get me off the hook for whatever the hell quest I and my brave heart and right belief were supposed to get ourselves killed over. On the other hand, some of those saber-carrying centaurs looked like pretty rough characters, and I hated to think what their reaction was going to be when they found out they had the wrong guy.

As Tauratanio spoke, he shifted the hand with which he was majestically gesturing at me in order to majestically gesture at something behind me. I turned around to see what it was.

It was an oak tree. A big one. The kind you find growing for, like, a thousand years in some forest in England or someplace. I hadn’t noticed it before, which was kind of odd, given the size of it. But there it was now anyway, near the edge of the grove. Its trunk was as thick around as … well, as the trunk of a gigantic oak tree. I can’t actually think of anything thicker around than that. Its branches sprang from it in all directions and rose into the forest night and fell to the forest floor like the legs of an alien spider in a science fiction film. Lit by the rainbow light of the fairies and the silver glow that emanated from the king and queen, its leaves showed themselves a rich copper gold that touched me somehow with their perfection and loveliness.

This was the gift Elinda had left for her chosen hero? A big tree? What was I supposed to do with it? Hug it? Put it in my pocket with thanks all around?

I glanced Maud-ward for help. But all the rodent-woman did was tilt her head toward the big tree, indicating I should approach it. I approached it. Got a closer look. It was a big old tree, all right. I glanced around me. From every nook in the glowing forest, eyes looked back at me. The eyes of the forest king and queen, yes, and the eyes of the martial centaurs and their ladies, the eyes of the imps and elves and the trolls with their peaked caps held humbly in their gnarly hands, the eyes of buzzing fairies hovering all aglow in the sable air, the eyes of fauns and satyrs with their pipes of Pan, and

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